Ideas float around the business, but not everybody gets a chance to build on them. That is the opportunity we get in these hackathons.

Jennifer Cherrington-Mowat, Genesis Energy

Jennifer Cherrington-Mowat is the first to dispel notions hackathons are primarily the domain of technical people.

A successful hackathon doesn’t have to be technical to be truly effective, says Cherrington-Mowat, head of technology and digital at Genesis Energy.

As proof, she cites the latest hackathon focusing on the company’s generation assets - its portfolio of thermal generation and renewable generation assets in this country.

It is the second hackathon for the organisation in six months.

In March, the first hackathon, or ‘internal innovation competition’ focused on the retail side of the business - its energy and gas brands Genesis and Energy Online.

The participants were given the challenge to ‘reimagine the customer experience through the use of mobile and/or digital technologies'.

The winner of the first event came from customer services. The team had pitched a chatbot to help customer queries. The chatbot is now on the company's website, while six ideas pitched during the debut hackathon are in development.

She says some of the people who joined the hackathon have been working at Genesis Energy for 30 years.

“This is not about designing a new app, or game or a different way to pay,” says Cherrington-Mowat.

“This is big, fundamental stuff. “When you think about IoT and big data, and how we have access to so much of it, the potential for having safer, more efficient and more effective generation assets means this hackathon had far bigger potential.”

“It has been interesting getting our energy generation engineers talking to our data scientists,” she says, as the company focused on the opportunities around big data during the recent hackathon.

First place went to The Dream Team, which developed a mobile app prototype allowing a field worker access to information held about an asset, by scanning the asset while out on the field. The app offers operational improvements, health and safety improvements, and accessibility to key information in the right context.

The Birdseye Team was second with a prototype application of Hololens and augmented reality. The team's scenario allows an engineer on site and a remote engineer overseas, to provide real time support to the on-site engineer.

Third place went to the Future LPG4ME team which developed a prototype to digitise the end to end process for bulk/wholesale LPG distribution. This aims to improve experiences for customers, schedulers and operations teams.

“The potential for improving what we do or making it safer is phenomenal,” she says, on these and other projects pitched at the hackathon.

"Asking customers, without a doubt, works every single time, especially if they see your products and services because they are going to be the ones that will use them."

At a previous company she worked with, she used to go to the chat room on Fridays, where customers phoned in their suggestions. “I just stayed there to listen, go away, make a list and make the changes that will have the biggest impact on customers.”

John Perez, Group Manager Omnichannel and UX and Jennifer Cherrington-Mowat, executive GM, technology and digital at Genesis Energy

She says the use of digitalisation allows a lot of companies to make a difference with their data.

“If you look at the cost of data storage, processing the tools that are out there … the ability for non-technology people to take data and introduce insights is the key difference,” she says.

“Really, none of these tools existed even five years ago and certainly if they did, we couldn't afford them. Now you can almost buy them off the shelf. You just have to fill it up and have clever people to look at it and see what they can get out of it."

She says Genesis Energy CEO Marc England had stated staff should think of the business 'as a startup with some heritage'.

“That is an interesting way of looking at a utility company,” she says. “All of the people are empowered to make a difference.”

The top prize went toThe Dream team who developed a mobile app prototype that can allow a field worker access to all information held about an asset by scanning the asset while on the field. The team members are:Steve Leppien, Stan Reader, Reyna Ramirez Montes,
Abdul Gibran, Gareth Findlay, Michael Dunn, Marilyn Cheng, Kevin Harman, Leyton Such, Martina Perez,Mike Tianyang (Source: Genesis Energy)The second place went to the Birdseye team which protoyped an innovative application of Hololens and augmented reality technology. The members are: Shane Seddon, Mike Cook, Brynn Elwin, Sneha Shankur,Ellie Watson, Daniel Johnston, Adam Whitmore, Colin Stevens (Source: Genesis Energy)The third place went to the Future LPG4ME team who developed a prototype to Digitise the end to end process for bulk/wholesae LPG distribution delivering improved experiences for customers, schedulers and operations teams. The team membes are: Julian McCree, Hope Allum, Glen Priest, Steve Duxfield, Sane-Marie Botha (Source: Genesis Energy)

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